Got my A01 today, it does indeed have PWM but I don’t see it being an issue for 99.95% of people, no idea what the tint is but it’s good as far as I’m concerned.

Interesting. I have the original A01 version (bought earlier this year) with the 4000K tint, and I can’t detect any sign of PWM with my dSLR on any of its modes. I’m glad I bought these when I did. It’s too bad they redesigned this light. 4000K tint is perfect for me, and I don’t like PWM.

I had two A01’s arrive yesterday, after a month long trip from China (and oddly enough, postmarked Vanuatu!).

They are exactly as described in the original post. Drivers are clearly marked ‘Manker’, strobe is well hidden, tint is < / > 4,000 k, and I’m not noticing any PWM (although I’m not very PWM sensitive).

One seemed to have a slight intermittent contact issue, but cleaning the threads and the contact surface at the front of the tube solved that.

The front of the tube appears to be either polished smooth after the ano is applied, or else protected so the ano doesn’t stick to it – I noticed a whitish waxy film on that surface that seemed to be preventing solid contact. A brisk wipe with alcohol on a paper towel removed it at once, and the light immediately worked properly.

All in all, I’m very pleased. They work as well as any other twistie (and I have a quite a few from several premium makers) – and of course, the tint is superior. I won’t be modding these two; they’re excellent just the way they are.

I finally got around to ordering the copper Blf A01 and while the aluminium ones were reduced I added an orange one on for my other half to put on her keys. The copper one is noticeably nicer/better. The head on the orange one seems very loose and wobbly and as someone said above, the pill isn’t branded ‘‘Manker’. Still, it’s no problem for the price and the head is nothing some ptfe tape can’t fix!
The copper one is great, smooth threads and picking up a nice patina

Just to vouch for the waterproofing on these. I gave one to my toddler to play with in the bath. It finally bit the dust last night after daily submersions for around a year maybe? Can’t knock that. I can reuse the lens in another lens-less one I have so all is good. Decent, robust little lights.

I gave one to my wife for Christmas and she put it on her car keyring. A month later she dropped it in the snow. When the snow thawed (months later) we found it. Keyring all bent, probably run over by the car. The coloring of the light a bit scratched, but otherwise not dented at all and worked perfectly. Can’t beat that.

My wife and I were married at the Ice Hotel in northern Sweden in January 2011. Kiruna/Jukkasjarvi is the coldest place I’ve ever been to. It got down to minus 37 celsius. My eyelashes stuck together with ice…..

Off-topic, sorry, but stories like this always get me. I can’t imagine living in a place where you can lose your car keys right in your own driveway for months, because snow.

Snow is usually better than grass, when it comes to not losing stuff. The only downside to snow is that (if it’s fresh) an item dropped into snow can fall through quite a distance. But at long as the surface hasn’t been disturbed, it’s usually pretty easy to see the hole, and find the item that way. In the woods, it can be tricky, because lots of stuff drops off trees to make little holes everywhere.

I’ve lost way more stuff in the lawn during summer, than I have in the snow during winter.

I don’t much like cold winters, but it does have the nice effect of killing off all insects and most other pests.

The downside to winter, when it comes to flashlights, is that most flashlight buttons are designed to be used with bare hands. Thick gloves make it almost impossible to turn on some flashlights, and removing them when it’s -20 or -30 is not something I like to do (especially if the flashlight metal is also -20).

Ridiculous…… I went to have a look at the lanyard on my dead A01 to transfer it to something else…. It was actually on in moonlight mode…. All modes work, no problem. It just needed a few days to dry out. Cockroach torch.

I’ve had a bright orange A01 for 6 months now and it’s performed flawlessly. I’d order more in a heartbeat if needed. I hang mine on my standard neck lanyard, run it on Eneloops (get some good run times out of them) and find it perfect for EDC use.

One modification I did which improved the light for my use was the addition of some clear PVC tube around the waist of the light. Cut to length, heated in boiling water and then slid on with some soap, it has shrunk into place and gives my teeth something soft to bite into when I want my hands free. It also really does help my fingers grip too the barrel too, and you can also slide the PVC down over the end to give yourself a much better tail-standing ability.

I’ll add that since I thought of the tube trick, I have modded my Olight i3S similarly. I do enjoy chip-free teeth . I suspect there are several lights out there that would like the PVC tube treatment

PS: before anyone asks, I can’t remember what size tube it is, sorry – easy enough in a store to try a few until you find one that is hard to get on – that’s the one you want as with some hot water and soap it will slide on easily.

I really like the A01, for the colors, sturdiness, moon, high output and the high-CRI Nichia.

But the next-mode-memory of the later versions makes them rather stupid. (In over 66% of the time they don’t start in the mode you want and you need to cycle. Which is not a big problem during daylight but VERY annoying at night, when you want to preserve night-vision and don’t want to disturb others !)

Gladly, I finally found the “pencil mod” which eliminates the NMM perfectly !!

Now, I am happy again.

Before, I modded two of my A01 into 1-mode by shorting the two connectors between the PCB. By this, you get a VERY bright AAA (even brighter than the high mode in the original setup). They then draw 2.2 amps from a fully charged eneloop.

…Before, I modded two of my A01 into 1-mode by shorting the two connectors between the PCB. By this, you get a VERY bright AAA (even brighter than the high mode in the original setup). They then draw 2.2 amps from a fully charged eneloop.

Welcome to BLF!
& I’m so glad you mentioned this. I’m going to grab my NMM A01 out of the drawer & try to make it a 1 mode too. I actually didn’t bother with trying the pencil trick to get rid of the NMM b/c the mode changing on my A01 seems too inconsistent (modes periodically change whilst turning the twisty.) By making it a 1 mode at least this light can be of some use as a keychain light. The other EDC on me can be the light to serve lower levels. Thanks again!

I got a few of each (2-3pcs each kind) of the Astrolux A01 / CPF Italia A01 / BLF A01 copper during BG’s Christmas sale, which just arrived recently.

All of them definitely use the Nichia 219B LED (none of them used 219C).

But other than that similarity, there are differences:

1) driver:
The Astrolux A01 aluminum uses a non-Manker driver, and has PWM (tested using digital camera and also shining light through rotating fan blades of a small portable fan — PWM shows as some kind of pattern). I haven’t completely checked if it uses the dreaded NMM (Next-Mode-Memory).
(Nothing is labeled on the head)

The CPF Italia A01 aluminum uses the Manker driver (NoPWM). (“Manker” is labeled on the head)

The BLF A01 copper also use the Manker driver (NoPWM). (“Manker is labeled on the head)

2) tints:

Now this seems to be where they really differ. While all use Nichia 219B (supposed to be 90CRI — but I don’t know of a quick way to check 90CRI), the tints differ noticeably.

The Astrolux A01 aluminum ones have neutral white tint (almost similar to the Astrolux S41S, which also use Nichia 219B).

The CPF Italia A01 aluminum ones have slightly warmer white (is that called 4500K?), but has a slight yellowish tint.

The BLF A01 copper ones seem to be a tint lottery — there’s a neutral-white (almost similar or just slightly less warm than the Astrolux A01 aluminum), and there’s another that’s warm (with a very slight rosy tint), plus there’s one that has a noticeably rosy tint (is this called 4000K?)

Here’s a picture of them:

Again, I don’t have a way of measuring color temperature, so I’m guessing the neutral white is 5000K, while the rosy one is 4000K, and the warm white in between is 4500K?

The CPF Italia A01 Copper has original Manker non-PWM driver high CRI 219B and of them all mentioned above has warmest CCT bellow 4000K IMHO nicest tint of all A01/E01 versions.

Manker E01 Aluminium sold now by Mankerlight has non-PWM original driver, has 219B high CRI and neutral tint about 5000K (similar to CCT of neutral copper BLF A01). Its body has the best quality and never flickers when turning on-off skipping modes like many Astrolux versions. Manker claims (in included paper manual) it has the 219C like E02h, but while mine E02h really has 219C, E01 is definitively 219B.

I went crazy last year and bought every possible version (except the Astrolux fiasco) of this light I could find anywhere, before the 219B versions are replaced with 219C like in recent Lumintop Tool AAA and Lumintop IYP365 And fortunately the Aluminium CPF versions with original Manker driver on Banggood were just US$3.97 during December, that was basically less than buying the emitters alone And at US$8.66, the copper CPF version was cheaper than Aluminium Manker E01 (US$ 9.89 on Aliexpress last month), but all of them are nice and nothing like the dreaded Astrolux A01 version.